


Every Day the Same Arguments

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: Matt finds himself stuck in a time loop after his argument with Foggy.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148057
Comments: 14
Kudos: 94
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Every Day the Same Arguments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissMoochy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMoochy/gifts).



> For my Bad Things Happen Bingo square "Time Loop"

The first time the day loops, Matt doesn’t even realize that’s what’s happening. He passes out on his couch in pain, alone, and he wakes up on his couch in pain... With Foggy back in his apartment.

The tiniest shoot of hope begins growing through the cracks in Matt’s heart. Foggy was mad, and he left, but he’s back. He’s back because he knows Matt needs him, because he doesn’t want to throw out their friendship entirely, because he still cares.

In the face of that, the pain in Matt’s body is nothing. He struggles to sit up, hissing a little at the sharp tug of his sutured wounds, opens his mouth and—

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

It’s said exactly the same. In exactly the same tone.

“Huh?”

“But then, what the hell do I know about Matt Murdock?”

“You—” Matt shakes his head, like maybe he can shake out the deja vu too. “You already said that.”

“Are you concussed?” snaps Foggy, and Matt flinches.

His head hurts and nothing makes sense, but he doesn’t— he doesn’t think... But maybe Foggy’s right. Maybe he’s concussed. Or this is a dream, just his brain spinning up memories to try and keep Foggy close.

“I don’t...”

It just... Aches. He’s tired. If this is a dream, or... He doesn’t know whether to sink into it or try and break free. It’s Foggy— his heartbeat recreated perfectly, the smell of his shampoo. But it’s also the creak of his tendons as he white-knuckles the kitchen counter, the smell of alcohol on his breath. Stale, upset. Because of Matt. Because all Matt can do is destroy the people he’s close to.

Is it better or worse than waking up and finding himself alone again? Matt doesn’t even know.

“How could you, Matt? How?” Foggy demands.

Matt sighs.

“Foggy, please. I don’t want to do this again.”

Doesn’t think he _can_ do it again. The accusations, the anger, the— the disappointment.

_I only ever needed my friend._

Matt doesn’t know what _he_ needs. What he _wants_ is for Foggy to stay. To listen. To understand. He wants it to back to how it was. Foggy’s voice proud and admiring. A time when he thought Matt was brilliant, brave.

Matt doesn’t deserve that. He knows. He’s already spent several hours listening to Foggy list reasons that Matt is undeserving of his trust and friendship. The violence. The danger he put Foggy and Karen in. The lies about the Devil, about his senses, about his training. But worst...

_Was anything ever real between us?_

The genuine fear, humiliation in Foggy’s voice as he spoke those words. The fact that Matt’s actions cracked so deep into the bedrock of their friendship that they made Foggy think that maybe he meant nothing to Matt, that Matt was just using him...

Matt can’t hear that again. Can’t let it get that far.

“Again?” demands Foggy, storming out of the kitchen area to stand in front of the couch. “What the hell does that mean, Matt, again? Because I think I would remember finding out that my best friend — my blind best friend, by the way — goes out at night in a mask and punches people!”

“We already did this,” Matt insists. “For, for hours, Foggy. I don’t want to fight about it, not again. Please—”

“No, Matt, we didn’t. Because you know what I’ve been doing for the past eight hours? It wasn’t arguing, and it definitely wasn’t listening to you explain any of this. No, instead I was pleading with every higher power I could think of that you weren’t going to bleed out and die on this _stupid couch_!”

Matt flinches. It’s not just the anger. There’s fear in Foggy’s voice too, and Matt— he had smelled the rank sourness of fear sweat, under the alcohol, but he hadn’t quite... All the frenzied words about Matt’s violence had colored that piece of sensory information, before, with the idea that Foggy was afraid of him.

But Matt remembers his father’s murder like it was yesterday, and framing things that way... Foggy, finding a friend dying. Of course he would be afraid. Afraid _for_ Mat, not of him.

“I’m sorry,” Matt finds himself saying. “I never, I never wanted to make you worry.”

“Good job with that.”

* * *

This time, Matt doesn’t wait for the painful questions. He throws the truth out there, as quickly and coherently as he can. What he’s done, but also what he hasn’t. And it’s— maybe, maybe it’s working. Foggy doesn’t have time to ramp himself up, to get self-righteous or accusatory. So Matt drags all the truths out of himself, tries to make sure nothing slips back to the script of the first time this day happened, until at last there’s nothing more to say.

Foggy takes a slow breath of air, blows it out.

“I’m your best friend. Why couldn’t you trust me with this?”

“Because it’s not a world for you,” explains Matt. “What I do at night, you don’t belong there.”

Foggy’s too good for that world. For all that he talks of being ruthless or practical, he’s innocent; soft. He’s someone Matt needs protected, someone who should never have to face the ugliness of the world — or of Matt’s Devil.

“Oh,” Foggy says, very quietly.

Matt has the sudden, sinking feeling he’s misstepped somewhere. Foggy pulls back, goes a little cold, sucks in a breath. And then he starts walking for the door.

“Where are you going?” Matt demands, frantic, grasping too late to try and grab ahold of Foggy, to keep him there.

“You need to rest,” Foggy says. “And I... I can’t. I can’t stay.”

The door doesn’t slam this time, but it still clicks shut behind him.

* * *

Matt goes to sleep.

Matt wakes up.

Once again, Foggy’s back. He asks the same questions. Prods the same wounds. Exudes the same hurt.

It’s a cycle. And maybe it’s a cycle because Matt made a mistake — because he didn’t get it right the first time, or the second. 

So Matt doesn’t tell Foggy about the loop. He tries to give better answers, to explain himself more reasonably — to be as smart and charismatic as he’s supposed to be. To convince Foggy to stay. He should be able to do this, he _knows_ he should be able to do this — he convinced Foggy to walk away from L&Z with him to zero prospects. He can convince him their ten years of friendship is still worth saving. He can do it. If he’s clever enough, if he finds the right words. He can do it. He can.

It doesn’t work. Foggy leaves.

Matt goes to sleep.

Matt wakes up.

* * *

Thirty loops in, Matt finally gives up on arguments and logic. He lays there, silent, and lets Foggy yell and cry and leave.

It’s over faster that way.

There’s nothing he could do or say to keep Foggy with him. He knows that now. This isn’t a second chance, it’s just hell.

* * *

By the fifty-first loop, Matt awakens with a horrible thought bubbling like tar at the back of his brain. His fingers flutter clumsily over his bandages.

What if he ripped out the sutures?

If he died, would the cycle end?

He can’t do it. He knows he can’t. The city still needs him. Fisk is still out there, and if Matt dies, there’s no one to stop him. No one to protect Foggy and Karen and Claire and the others.

But the fact that the thought even occurs to him, the fact that it drums incessantly at the back of his head even after he rejects it, brings frustrated tears to Matt’s eyes.

He tries to dash them away, but once they’ve started they won’t stop. Even as his emotional state starts to level out, Matt’s body begins heaving ugly, gulping sobs. Stupid. He’s being ridiculous and he knows it, but he just... He can’t stop.

“Matt?”

Foggy sounds taken aback, and very concerned. Which is at least a change from angry, or disappointed. He stumbles over his feet to get to the front of the couch, but then doesn’t reach out and touch Matt. His hands hover an inch away, radiating warmth.

“Are you hurt— I mean, of freaking course you’re hurt, you got chopped up like a salami, but what, where does it...” Foggy falters, perhaps realizing that even if something really was wrong he wouldn’t have the medical experience to fix it. “Do I need to call your nurse back?” 

Matt shakes his head.

“I’m f-fine,” he insists, because he is, because this crying is stupid, he’s not even sad, he’s just tired and stressed and—

“Buddy you aren’t even on the same planet as fine.”

There’s a note of fondness in Foggy’s voice, the quietest hint of it, and Matt... Matt can’t handle that. He can’t bear to let hope bubble up in him again, not when it’s just going to be crushed.

“Just, just say what you have to say and leave,” he spits, vainly scrubbing the tear tracks from his face. “You always do.”

There’s a thump as Foggy takes one heavy, stumbling step back like Matt shoved him.

“What, wh—” he sputters, and the hurt wars with anger in his voice, swirling together until they blur into a single guilt-inducing emotion. “How can you say that, Matt! I have never, never once left you when you needed me!”

“I need you now! And I know you won’t believe me but you’re going to walk out that door because that’s what you’ve done every single time — I wake up and you, you ask if I set the bombs, if I’m really blind, if our friendship ever meant anything to me. You say you think I just want to have an excuse to hit someone. That I put you and Karen in danger without your consent. All that. And you leave, and I try to— I try to rest and then I wake up to the whole thing all over again! No matter what I do! So just say it and go!”

Foggy goes silent and still for a long, long time. The even in and out whoosh of his breathing is contradicted by the way his heart races, fluttering like the wings of a bird. Matt can’t even begin to guess what he’s thinking, what choices he’s weighing.

“How many times?” he asks at last, very quiet.

Matt sniffs, wets his dry lips.

“Fifty-two.”

Foggy’s breath catches in his throat with a sharp, rough noise.

“Jesus.”

And then he’s folding his arms around Matt’s shoulders, barely touching him but clearly a hug. For three seconds, Matt holds firm, doesn’t sink into the embrace. And then his willpower crumbles, like it always does for Foggy, and he clutches him closer, fisting his hands in the back of Foggy’s wrinkled dress shirt. It doesn’t matter that it hurts. Foggy’s holding him and Matt doesn’t want him to let go. Not ever.

“I’m still mad,” Foggy tells him, but stays where he is, doesn’t pull away. “I’m fucking pissed, actually. And I still have questions. We need to... You need to tell me the truth. About everything. But if you need me, Matt, if you— I won’t leave again.”

Truth. Truth, truth, truth. Matt can hardly believe what he’s hearing. There’s still so much Foggy doesn’t know yet, but he just promised he wouldn’t leave, and Foggy never breaks his promises.

“But all those other times...”

“Maybe I did leave those other times. But I’ve been in love with you since I was nineteen,” Foggy admits. “Unless the truth is you never cared about me at all, I probably would have come around eventually.”

In... In love. In love with Matt.

“I. I’m.”

He can’t say it. He can’t, but he needs to. He needs to say something, needs to keep Foggy from feeling hurt, sad, humiliated — because Foggy is the kind of person who de-escalates, who leaves a confrontation. If his feelings are hurt, he might leave, and—

“Foggy, I, I—”

“Matt.” There’s a palm cupping his cheek. “Hey. Come on. I’m not asking for or accepting an answer right now. I just... Wanted you to know. We can work it all out later. You need to get some more sleep so you can heal.”

The knot of anxiety twisting in his chest loosens. But it doesn’t fall away entirely.

Matt bites his lip.

“I don’t... What if I fall asleep and it starts all over again? I don’t think— I don’t think I could take it.”

“Then we’ll lay down together,” Foggy says, “so you’ll know right away that you haven’t. Your bed’s more comfortable than the couch anyway.”

He stands, then helps Matt to his feet. Hands so gentle at Matt’s wrists that the pain everywhere else doesn’t seem to matter, Foggy leads Matt to the bedroom. Each movement is slow and careful as he helps Matt get under the covers, making sure none of his bandages or his sutured wounds are jostled. Matt always, always hates being treated like glass, like he’s fragile — but this is... It’s different, somehow. It’s not about thinking Matt is breakable, weak, child-like. It’s because Foggy loves him. Thinks that he’s precious. Wants only good things for him. Matt has no idea what to do with those feelings, but he doesn’t want to lose them, not ever.

The bed dips as Foggy crawls into the other side. The heat of him, so close, is a balm. And yet, selfishly, Matt needs more. Though he can hear Foggy’s heartbeat and smell him — ink, salt, booze, Foggy — he needs more. Slowly, carefully, Matt shifts so his ear is pressed up against Foggy’s chest. So that steady, calming metronome is vibrating through him.

“Comfy?” Foggy asks, and Matt can feel the words in his teeth.

“Mmm.”

His jaw cracks with a yawn that hurts his ribs, but after a second or two the pain settles low and buzzing into the background. White noise. He’s already drifting off.

Matt falls asleep, in bed, with Foggy curled gently around him; he wakes up the same way.


End file.
